Tuesday, March 19, 2013

A Somewhat Surprising But Encouraging Development

I've talked before about the profound differences between the way the neurotypical and the most common non-neurotypical 'diplomatic models' work. In short, the neurotypical likes you more the more favors he does for you. The non-neurotypical likes you better the more favors you do for him. Those who want to be somewhat deprecating would say that the non-neurotypical is selfish and the neurotypical in ungrateful.

But I'm not in the mood to deprecate anyone today. Today let's consider how you, as a charity, might solicit contributions for a worthy cause from both of these populations. The neurotypical, protest as he might, generally likes it when you 'over-communicate', and send him lots of solicitations. The more often he writes you a check, the more likely he is to write you more of them in the future. It's quite funny really watching neurotypicals CLAIM that they have a non-neurotypical diplomatic model but then demonstrate through their actions time and time again that their model is in fact bog standard. Ever wonder why the typical modes of sales and solicitation are as they are? It's because they work really well on this 95% of the population.

But let's say you want to solicit the non-neurotypical. The more often you have to trouble them for a favor, the less they'll come to like you. The dead giveaway is when you as the charity are getting autopay checks on a monthly or quarterly basis. The more neurotypical a person is, the more they're likely to enjoy the act of writing you a check and mailing it to you, or better yet, giving it to you in person---assuming of course that they value your organization and its work. The non-neurotypical is precisely the opposite. To stay the sort of 'cheerful giver' that God loves, they pretty much have to automate it, and automate it they do.

Now the encouraging development is this---I was recently called by one of the charities my wife and I regularly support. But the instant they recognized that we auto-pay them every month (they called on my name and we autopay with my wife's name), they immediately apologized for bothering us and thanked us for our support. This tells me that at least some charities get it, and have developed a model that has at least adequate resolution on this topic.